


The Leaving Song

by Jynguo



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 17:58:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jynguo/pseuds/Jynguo
Summary: "It was amazing, how much easier life became when you were traveling with a white man."





	The Leaving Song

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to a good friend for beta reading and providing advice. This is the first time I've ever completed a piece of fanfic, and I've learned, from the experience, that I really like my commas.

It was amazing, how much easier life became when you were traveling with a white man. Oh, people still gave him trouble, but it was mostly sidelong looks and snide remarks instead of the outright brawls Billy’d grown accustomed to. Goodnight smiled right through those as if he hadn’t heard what had clearly been said, and sometimes the speaker quailed beneath his aggressive politeness, would even occasionally, to Billy’s astonishment, mutter an apology beneath his breath.

They didn’t run into real trouble until they were almost out of Texas. By then, they’d been riding together for a month--three weeks longer than Billy had expected this arrangement to last. He’d stopped waiting for Goodnight to change his mind and try to collect on the bounty after all, but he still hadn’t quite grown used to the company. After months of riding through vast stretches of land empty but for himself, Billy found Goodnight’s steady conversation jarring.

Still, better Goodnight’s conversation than the sudden hush that greeted Billy when he walked into the saloon alone.

“Bottle of whiskey,” Billy said to the barman. 

He ignored the silence at his back, but he could feel his shoulders tightening in response to the rising hostility. He used to be able to let it roll off, but he’d grown lax in Goodnight’s company. He hadn’t forgotten the way things could go to hell in places like this, but he’d been fooled, briefly, into thinking those days were behind him.

“Don’t got whiskey,” the barman said.

Billy studiously did not look at the bottles lining the shelf behind the counter. “Beer, then.”

“No beer, either.”

“You’re telling me, nothing at all.” Billy said it flat, the way he’d learned to do so his accent bled through less. 

The barman narrowed his eyes, but when Billy heard the tell-tale creak of poorly laid floorboards, it came from behind him, about five feet away and just a little to his right. He let his hand fall towards his belt, casually.

The man who pulled up beside him was built like a bear. “You calling ol’ Tom here a liar?” he asked, each word reeking of alcohol.

Billy turned to face him, tilting his head back to meet the man’s red-rimmed eyes. “No,” he said. “Only that it’s hard to believe.”

“Ol’ Tom don’t lie,” the man said. “There’s nothing here for the likes of you. You want some’in to drink, check over by the stables. They’ll maybe have something for you.”

Billy’s hand clenched around the hilt of a knife. It would be so easy--drive the blade smoothly through the man’s abdomen, ram it past muscle and towards the kidney. It wouldn’t kill him as fast as a knife to the neck, but it’d shut him up just as sure.

The man clamped a hand down on Billy’s shoulder, and it took all of his considerable self control not to draw the knife. “Get on outta here,” the man said. “Before there’s trouble.”

“We got a problem here, gentlemen?”

Goodnight’s voice. Billy had heard the door open, but he hadn’t realized who’d come in. The man was ambling up to the bar with his hands in his pockets, the others crowded around behind him as they gave up the pretense of not being aware what was going on.

The man beside Billy eyed Goodnight up and down. “Boy here don’t know his place,” he said.

“That man,” Goodnight said easily, “is a friend of mine, and I’d appreciate it if you’d unhand him. It’s hard to find a traveling companion these days you can trust.”

The man spat. “You need new friends.”

Goodnight ignored the gob that landed on his boot. “No, I don’t reckon I do,” he said. “The war, now--if the war’s taught me anything, it’s that one finds friends in strange places, and you hang on to them when you do.” He set his hat on the counter and smiled across at the barman. “A bottle of your best whiskey, if you’d be so kind, and three glasses. I haven’t had a proper drink in days, and I’ve acquired an almighty thirst.”

The man looked bewildered, and just a little confused. “This Chinaman--” he tried again.

“Has a name,” Goodnight interrupted smoothly. “He’s Billy, I’m Goodnight. And you are…?”

“Henry.” The name came out automatic, like the man who owned it hadn’t really had a say in the matter. He blinked at the sound of it, began to scowl, but lost that particular train of thought when Goodnight slid a glass across to him.

“Here you are, Henry,” Goodnight said, pouring him a generous portion from the bottle the barman had miraculously produced after being all out of whiskey not ten minutes past. “To new friends.”

Henry was too drunk, or too stupid, to keep up with Goodnight, but he wasn’t about to give up without a fight. He’d taken his hand off Billy when the whiskey’d come out, but now he took a step towards Goodnight, the scowl returning. “Look here, I don’t--”

“Henry,” someone else said. There was a warning in it, as well as a touch of awe. “That’s Goodnight Robicheaux. You don’t wanna mess with him--that ain’t a fight you’re gonna win.”

“And it ain’t a fight I came looking for,” Goodnight said, turning his smile on the man who’d spoken. “Billy and I, we were just passing through and thought it couldn’t hurt to stop for a spell. It’s a fine town you boys’ve built.”

It wasn’t. _Town,_ in fact, was a rather generous word for this place, which looked more tents and mud than actual buildings. The men seemed pleased to hear that bit of praise all the same--although Billy wondered how much was the praise itself, and how much was the fact that it’d been given by Goodnight. He hadn’t heard much about Goodnight Robicheaux and wasn’t inclined to ask, but this wasn’t the first time he’d watched other men respond like this to his name. It spread in ripples through the crowd, the words _Angel of Death_ passing from man to man in a hush.

“Here,” Goodnight murmured, setting a glass in front of Billy, seemingly oblivious to the effect he’d had. He’d managed to insert himself between Billy and Henry, the latter of whom had already downed his portion of whiskey and was weaving on his feet. “You’ve certainly endured enough for this.”

Billy considered taking the remainder of Goodnight’s bottle and leaving. He’d gotten what he came for, and he’d enjoy it in more peace out by the corrals where there’d be no drunkards picking fights they couldn’t win. Pride stayed his hand, though, and he nodded his thanks to Goodnight before picking up the glass. He could feel the barman watching him, and he locked eyes with the man as he lifted his drink, face impassive through the first rough burn of good whiskey down his throat.

The barman turned away first. Billy tried to take satisfaction from that.

* * *

They left shortly after sundown. “What happened to the hotel?” Billy asked as they rode past the gate that marked the edge of town.

“To be quite honest,” Goodnight said, “I never was able to find it. All for the better, I imagine. That wouldn’t have been a safe place for either of us come morning.”

The men in the saloon had all either stumbled off to dinner or gone to sleep sprawled in their chairs, felled by whiskey and some other, murkier liquor Billy had refused to touch. The argument had been forgotten as soon as the second bottle came out, and the men had jostled for a seat at Goodnight’s table, all of them with questions about the war and stories about their own experiences or those of someone they knew.

“You think he’ll come looking for me.”

“I think he’ll think I made a fool of him,” Goodnight said.

They rode in silence for a ways. Goodnight spotted a likely stopping place, a flat bit of ground sheltered beneath a rare tree, and they turned the horses loose to graze before going about setting up camp. Dinner was heating in the pan when Billy said, “I didn’t need you to save me.”

Goodnight looked at him over the fire, face drawn long by shadows. “No,” he said. “But Henry did. I never cease to be amazed by the way people fail to recognize death when it looks them in the eye.”

Billy didn’t have a ready reply for that.

* * *

Three days later, Billy and Goodnight parted ways. “I have something to finish,” was Billy’s explanation, and Goodnight didn’t press him.

“Well,” Goodnight said, scratching beneath the brim of his hat. “Well. It was a pleasure riding with you.” He squinted against the sun, seeming to think for a moment before adding, “I’ll be in the territory for awhile, I expect. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

Billy looked at the open land around them. “It’s a large place.”

Goodnight smiled. “It’s only as large as you want it to be.” 

He tipped his hat towards Billy, then clicked to his horse, pulling gently on the reins, and started down the road that led west.

Billy turned his own horse north. It was long past time for him to go his separate way.

* * *

Billy was watering his mare one afternoon on the edge of summer when he spotted a familiar bay hitched outside the general store. He’d spent the last two months fighting his way through the New Mexico territory, thickening his skin and putting a bullet in anyone who’d given him more than just insults. His reputation never preceded him, but most people who looked at him now thought at least a third time before coming at him swinging. Someone called him a dead-eyed son of a bitch once, and Billy had thought, well, that could be useful.

He left his horse at the watering trough and started for the store. The bay flicked an ear at him but didn’t raise its head as he approached, and Billy wondered if perhaps he had been mistaken. Then Goodnight’s voice came drifting past the door, that slow Southern drawl unmistakable, and Billy shook his head slightly at the chance of it before pushing his way into the store.

“There I was,” Goodnight said, leaning up against the counter, hands spread wide as if encompassing some larger idea, “staring down this goddamned mountain lion with a snake rattlin’ behind me, and I don’t have anything on me other than the clothes I’m wearing. Let me tell you, son: nothing’ll teach you faster to always keep your gun with you.”

“I thought it was a bear,” Billy said.

Goodnight turned away from the store clerk. For a moment, Billy saw his eyes sharp with surprise before his whole face brightened into a grin. “Why,” he said, “if it isn’t Billy Rocks.”

It turned out Goodnight was on his way through in pursuit of a felon. The man was wanted for two counts of murder and had last been spotted paddling up the Rio Grande, though that rumor was at least a month old. Goodnight didn’t rightly know where the man might be by now, but he suspected the answer was somewhere in Indian country.

“Is your business concluded?” Goodnight asked over dinner that night.

Billy nodded.

“Satisfactorily, I hope.”

Billy took a swig of whiskey and passed the bottle back to Goodnight in lieu of a reply.

Goodnight accepted it, swirled the contents thoughtfully about, and said, “You’re welcome to come with me.”

Billy ran a chunk of bread through the last of his meal as he considered it. He’d gotten used again to silence, but this time around the solitude had grated in a way it hadn’t before. The silence then had been desired; this time, it’d felt imposed. 

“For how long?” he asked finally.

Goodnight shrugged. “As long as it takes to get the job done.”

Billy chewed the bread, swallowed. “Why not,” he said, and Goodnight smiled like that was the answer he’d hoped for.

* * *

One week bled into two, two into three. Goodnight found his man, and Billy took him down with what Goodnight called terrifying efficiency. They brought the man to the nearest sheriff, and afterwards, as they sat in the hotel room he had rented for the night, Goodnight counted the money out into two equal piles.

“Your share,” he said, setting one stack down at the foot of Billy’s bed.

Billy glanced at the bills. “It was your arrest.”

“I may have the authority,” Goodnight said, “but you were the means. I’d call anything less than this unfair.”

Their relationship shifted from there, subtly. Billy’d never had cause to complain about the way Goodnight treated him; he wouldn’t have stayed with him so long, otherwise. The work and the money put them on equal footing, though, and for all that Goodnight had been easy about calling Billy _friend_ before, the word sat a little differently now. Billy could almost believe it.

November found them back in Texas. The first hint of winter was sharp in the air, and it blew in hard when he and Goodnight were some days out from the nearest town. They were on the trail of another killer -- this one sentenced, though somehow escaped the night before he was meant for the gallows -- but Goodnight brought them to a halt when rain began to fall. “Got the looks of a bad one,” he said, turning his face up to the amassing clouds.

They anchored their tarps in the lee of several large rocks, setting them up at a diagonal against the rain. The horses were restless, and Billy hammered the picket down deep while Goodnight got the fire started. The rocks curved slightly inwards to form a shallow cave, providing some shelter from the rising wind, and they managed a more or less comfortable meal before the weather drove them beneath their makeshift tent. 

Billy fell asleep immediately. That was one of the first things he’d learned since taking to the road: to sleep and to eat when and where he could, because he never knew when he’d get another chance. He slept lightly, though, and sometime in the night, he woke to the sound of Goodnight crying out in his sleep.

This wasn’t the first time Billy had been woken by Goodnight’s terrors. He’d learned to judge the fits, weighing whether one was bad enough for him to shake Goodnight out of it. At the beginning, he’d thought Goodnight would rather be awake than mired in his nightmares, but he’d figured out quickly that Goodnight didn’t see things the same way. Goodnight had apologized profusely the first time he’d woken Billy -- and the second, and the third -- and though the apologies had tapered away, Goodnight’s shame always sat heavy between them for a day or two in the aftermath. It was disgraceful, Goodnight said, and Billy knew better than to try and reason with him.

This one was a bad one. Goodnight was muttering into his arm, eyes screwed tight and shoulders tense around his neck. Billy couldn’t make out the words, nor did he particularly care to. The desperation in that strangled voice told him enough, and he hesitated only a second before nudging Goodnight’s shoulder.

“Goodnight,” Billy said. “C’mon, wake up.”

Goodnight came to with a start and a choked-off scream. He scrambled up in his bedroll and stared unseeing at Billy, his whole body trembling fit to fall apart. Billy gave him his space, at least as much was possible within the confines of the tarpaulin, and spoke soothingly at him without worrying too much what he was saying. Goodnight’s shaking eventually eased, but there was still something trapped and panicked in his eyes when he said, “Out. I can’t… Out.”

Billy moved out of his way, and Goodnight stumbled past him. The rain and the wind had stopped, leaving the ground a muddy mess but the sky a clear, beautiful arc of stars. Billy grabbed their blankets and ducked out after Goodnight, lips pressing tight against the sudden chill.

Goodnight was huddled by a rock, crouched down on his heels. He was shaking again, though probably more from the cold than the fear. 

“Here,” Billy said, dropping a blanket around Goodnight’s shoulders, and leaned up against the rock. The horses were vague shapes nearby, and for a few minutes, the only sound around was of their breathing.

Billy pulled his own blanket around himself and worked at a cigarette he’d pulled from his pack. It was too dark to see well, the match a flare of blinding light when it caught, but he managed at length to get the cigarette rolled and lit. He inhaled deeply and then passed it over to Goodnight, who took it without seeming to notice he’d done so.

Billy looked over to the horses as Goodnight took his first draw from the cigarette. He heard a cough, and then: “What is this?”

“Tobacco,” Billy said. “A little opium.”

Goodnight brought the cigarette back up, and the glowing ember of it cast shadows upon his face. “Can’t say I marked you as an opium smoker,” he said on the exhale.

Billy reached out as Goodnight handed the cigarette back over. “It passed the nights.” He let the opium smoke roil sweetly inside him and added, “Haven’t in awhile.”

They sat in companionable silence for some time, passing the cigarette back and forth. When it was nothing but a stub, Billy ground it out beneath his heel and contemplated starting a fire. The cold wasn’t unbearable, though, now that the wind wasn’t at their heels, and he didn’t think it’d be worth the trouble of trying. Dawn shouldn’t be far away.

He wasn’t entirely sure what possessed him to say, into the stillness, “I’m not from China.”

Billy felt more than saw Goodnight turn to him. “No?”

“Korea.” The shape of the word felt strange in Billy’s mouth, sharp in ways it wasn’t in his native tongue. “My uncle, he took me to Hong Kong. We came here for the work.”

There was a pause. “Your uncle,” Goodnight ventured, uncharacteristically hesitant.

“Died on the railroad. An explosion.”

It was a familiar story. Everyone Billy had ever worked with had a similar tale to tell: a son, a husband, a cousin, dead from the labor or from saying the wrong thing in the wrong person’s hearing. Billy kept his history to himself, generally, but the words came out of him now, loosened by opium and drawn by circumstance into the crisp, clear dark.

Goodnight listened as Billy talked, his gaze never wavering. When Billy ran out of words, silence settled again, at once heavy and curiously soft. It was broken only when one of the horses chuffed. Billy leaned more heavily into the rock and chose not to examine the strange lightness inside him.

“Will you look at that,” Goodnight said after a few long minutes, turning his face finally away from Billy. The darkness had broken into gray, and the distant mountains were limned with the first rose hint of morning. “Seems we’ve got ourselves the start of a beautiful sunrise.”

* * *

Goodnight’s man had gone to ground in the vast northwestern plains. That was the theory, anyways, but when Billy and Goodnight stumbled across a broken-down shack one afternoon, they found someone else entirely holed up inside. 

“Andrew Jones,” Goodnight said, unrolling the wanted poster he’d picked up on their way through San Antonio. “The scar matches.”

Not much else did. The man had been dead for a good few days now, and bloat had rendered his features unrecognizable. Billy kept back, letting Goodnight do the work of figuring out how to transport the body. “It might not be worth the trouble,” Goodnight said, settling back on his heels. “Easy enough money, but he’s just as li -- “

The first bullet broke the window above Goodnight’s head. Goodnight flinched, but Billy was already on his way to the door, gun in hand. The horses were panicking outside. He could see, just beyond them, the shape of a man half-obscured by a tree. The second bullet lodged itself in the ground, and Billy took the chance to lean out and fire off a shot.

The man was too far away for Billy to hit. This likewise meant he was too far away to hurt Billy or Goodnight, not unless he had a rifle to match his pistol, but Billy could see a cloud of dust rising from the right. 

“Company,” he said to Goodnight, who’d recovered enough to come up behind him.

“So I heard,” Goodnight said. His voice was tight, nearly creaking beneath the strain, but he had his Spencer out. Billy glanced down at it and then raised his eyes to Goodnight’s. Goodnight jerked his head towards the door. “I’ll take the window.”

Billy leaned out again and let the shooter waste a few more bullets. The horses had fled. From the corner of his eye, he could see Goodnight knocking out what remained of the glass to aim towards the oncoming dust cloud.

“Three riders,” Goodnight said, rifle steady in his hands.

There was a just audible creak to the left of the door. Billy moved instinctively, spinning through the door with a knife in hand, and sank the blade into the newcomer’s thigh. The man stood blinking for a startled moment, and then he howled, dropping his gun in order to clutch at his leg.

Billy heard a rifle crack behind him but didn’t spare the time to look. He ducked back inside just as another bullet whined by, close enough he felt the wind of it passing, and took a quick inventory of what else lay outside. There wasn’t much by way of cover, but if he could make it to the boulder where they’d tied the horses, he’d be in a better position to deal with the gunman.

Goodnight fired again, this time in the direction of the tree. “Law enforcement?” he asked.

“No badge.”

Goodnight grunted. “Trouble either way.”

“Trouble when they started shooting,” Billy replied. “Cover me,” he added, and Goodnight spared him a glance before returning his attention to the oncoming riders.

Billy pulled his pistol free of its holster and stepped through the door again, giving the wounded man a hard tap on the head as he passed to ensure he wouldn’t bother Goodnight. Then he was running hard and low to the ground as the gunman began firing again, and the world narrowed down to the familiar thrill of adrenaline in his blood.

It should have been an easy fight. Billy had faced worse odds before, and although he’d never seen Goodnight shoot before now, he’d heard enough stories, all of them similar, to suspect there was some kernel of truth in them. Goodnight certainly handled his rifle well, and as Billy fetched up against the boulder, he heard a horse scream shrilly in the distance.

When Billy rolled out from behind the boulder, pistol heavy in his hand, the Spencer cracked once more. The gunman had been aiming for Billy but ducked back behind his tree at the sound of the shot. When he peered out again, Billy put a bullet through his head and another in his chest to be sure of the job.

That was at least three men down--probably more, if Goodnight’s aim was as good as they said. But then Billy turned, and one of the horsemen was riding hard at him, eating up the distance between them faster than Billy had expected. He had a shotgun leveled at Billy, and Billy threw himself behind the tree just as the man fired. As the man paused to reload, Billy pivoted into the open and flung a knife into his neck. The man stared at him, then slowly toppled over his horse’s shoulders.

Billy had one bullet and one knife left. The remaining horseman was already at the shack, his animal prancing uncertainly in place as he aimed a shotgun at the door. The horseman fired, and Billy ran towards him, suddenly unconcerned with reloading. Sand crunched underfoot, and the horseman wheeled his horse around, gun barrel pulling towards Billy.

The horseman was fast. Billy was faster.

A moment later, the horse trotted away unburdened, its rider having fallen when Billy’s bullet caught him in the chest. The man wasn’t quite dead yet, but judging by the way his breath whistled, he would be in another minute or two. Billy pulled out a knife and strode inside, steeling himself for what he might find.

Goodnight stood in the middle of the shack, gazing at nothing Billy could see. With relief that surprised him, Billy noted that he didn’t seem to be bleeding, but he was breathing hard and holding his rifle with knuckles stark white. He didn’t notice Billy enter, and Billy said, very softly, “Goodnight.”

No reaction.

“Goodnight,” Billy tried again. “It’s over.”

Goodnight blinked. His gaze traveled slowly over to Billy, and after a long, long while, he sighed. Then his eyes went wide, and he leaned towards a corner, retching.

Billy stepped back out to round up their horses and give Goodnight some privacy. The last horseman was dead, and his bay had wandered over to the other shooter’s, perhaps finding some comfort in familiarity. The animals eyed Billy warily as he approached, but the bay allowed him to reach for its bridle, ears flicking forward and back. Billy patted it on the neck before pulling the dead man off the other horse and retrieving his knife.

His own horse was grazing not too far off with Goodnight’s right alongside. They followed Billy back to the shack, and he dropped their reins to the ground on the far side of the building, away from the blood and corpses. “We should go,” he said when he heard footsteps by the door.

“Billy,” Goodnight began.

“We’ll take the horses with us.” Billy nodded towards the bay and the roan, both of which had drifted closer. They wore signs of hard living, scars ridging their skin and not enough meat on their bones, but they’d sell. The money from Goodnight’s last arrest was nearly gone, and they needed to resupply. He hesitated, then asked, “Are you hurt?”

It was an ambiguous question. Goodnight was enough of himself again to recognize that, and his mouth quirked in the driest smile Billy had ever seen. “I’m alive,” he said.

Billy understood that that would have to do, for now.

* * *

They traveled slowly into the New Mexico territory, sharing cigarettes and sleeping outside while the weather still permitted it. They sold the gunmen’s horses to a merchant headed out west, a well-heeled man who needed animals that wouldn’t shy at bullets. He looked at Billy sideways, and Goodnight, smile broadening just a touch, gave him a price half again as high as what he and Billy had agreed on. 

About three days out of Santa Fe, they set up camp as usual, coming to a halt without any real discussion about it as the sky darkened into dusk. Billy saw to the horses while Goodnight made a meal from their new supplies. Afterwards, they sat smoking together, silently passing the cigarette back and forth. Billy could feel Goodnight’s ghosts pressing down on them, but Goodnight kept his past carefully tidied away, locked beneath a veneer of joviality that he kept up with sharp-edged precision so that the ghosts were never made tangible. Billy, whose own ghosts had followed him across an ocean in order to haunt his dreams, knew something of what it was like to wear a mask, and he never inquired about Goodnight’s. If Goodnight wanted him to know, he’d say so.

Billy slept more deeply these days. The opium relaxed him, made the dreams come easier, and he’d lost his wariness about putting his back to Goodnight. That, combined with the half-bottle of whiskey they’d shared between them with dinner, meant he didn’t hear a thing when Goodnight up and left in the middle of the night.

When Billy finally woke up, stirred out of sleep by the sense that something was askew, dawn was already a smudge on the horizon. It took him a moment to register Goodnight’s absence, another to realize he’d taken half the supplies with him. 

“Damn it, Goodnight,” he muttered as he scrubbed a hand over his face. Then he saw the bills beneath the rock, a stack that amounted to more than half the merchant’s money, and he cursed again in earnest.

He almost let him go. If Goodnight wanted to leave, that was his business, and Billy had never been one to force his company on another person. Yet when he’d gotten his supplies sorted and his bedroll packed, he found himself turning his horse’s nose west, angling in the same direction as the other man’s tracks. Just to be sure, he told himself. Just to make certain it wasn’t nightmares that’d chased Goodnight away, that it wasn’t his devils that had made him run. He’d hear it from Goodnight’s mouth, and then he’d leave him be.

* * *

Goodnight hadn’t made much of an effort to hide his tracks. When Billy figured out where Goodnight was headed, he gave him his room, let his horse set the pace instead of urging it forward. 

He rode into Santa Fe some days later and found Goodnight in the second gambling house he checked. He was sitting alone at the bar, two bottles at his elbow and a glass in hand, looking well on the way to drowning himself. Billy strode in, ignoring the looks he earned, and eased himself onto the stool beside Goodnight’s.

Goodnight glanced aside and looked entirely unsurprised to see him. “Shouldn’t’ve followed me,” he said, a slight slur to the words.

Billy took the glass from Goodnight and poured himself a drink. “Wanted to make sure you were still alive.”

Goodnight leaned back and gestured at himself with a flourish. “Well, here I am.”

Billy made a noncommittal sound and tossed back the whiskey. It burned harshly, and he glanced at the closest bottle before putting the glass down. “Water,” he told the barkeep, who flicked a look between the two of them but eventually went towards the other end of the counter.

“You make a mess,” the man said as he poured out a glass of rather murky water, “you clean it up.” He set the water in front of Billy, who nodded his thanks and decided the whiskey was the wiser option.

“Why’d you follow me here?” Goodnight asked.

“To ask why you left.”

Goodnight barked a laugh. “Four days of riding for that,” he said. “I should’ve left you a note and saved you the trouble.”

Billy didn’t respond.

After a long moment, Goodnight sighed and seemed to fold in on himself a little. “I froze,” he said. “Almost got you killed for it.”

“I’m still here.”

“For now.” Goodnight reached for the glass, and Billy didn’t stop him from taking it. “You stay with me,” he said, “and I’ll be the death of you.”

Billy felt the truth of that and realized he didn’t particularly care. “At least it will have been an interesting life.”

Goodnight stopped mid-pour. “Jesus, Billy.”

Billy took the bottle from Goodnight and finished pouring out the glass. They sat in silence for some time, drinking occasionally but mostly feeling out the lay of this new and unfamiliar land. It’d always been Goodnight chasing Billy down, unlooked for company that’d endeared itself over the months, and now here was Billy following Goodnight’s trail into a town that didn’t particularly welcome him. Billy could hear Goodnight thinking beside him and waited patiently for him to reach a conclusion.

“Goody,” Goodnight said finally.

Billy turned to him.

“Goodnight’s what they -- “ Goodnight cut himself off and shook his head. “Call me Goody.”

“Alright.”

“Alright.” Goodnight picked up his glass, only to lower it again. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Billy nudged the bottle clear. “Outside. I’m not cleaning it up.”

Goodnight laughed again, and this time it sounded more like the laugh Billy was used to, bright and warm, not that sharp and brittle thing from earlier. “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to,” Goodnight said. He lurched off his stool, swaying slightly as he gained his feet. “After you, my friend.”

Billy raised his eyebrows. Goodnight didn’t look in any condition to be walking on his own, but when he just canted his head, Billy slid past him and proceeded towards the door. He heard the clink of coins behind him, followed by the sound of boots against the floor, and something loosened in his chest.

“We may need to rethink our source of income,” Goodnight said, coming up beside him. “Chasing bounties ain’t exactly profitable, and there won’t always be horses to sell.”

“You have ideas?”

“Perhaps a few,” Goodnight allowed.

Billy considered this. “Dinner first,” he said. Goodnight had made it this far without being sick, but that didn’t mean the threat was past. Food and some actual drinkable water might help alleviate that -- and anyways, Billy found suddenly that he was famished.

“Practical as always,” Goodnight said.

“One of us has to be,” Billy replied easily. He counted out the merchant’s money in his head and decided they could afford to eat at one of the better establishments. They weren’t exactly flush, but even after Billy had given Goodnight’s proper share of the sale back to him, he would have enough to see him through for awhile.

Goodnight was talking again, something about competitions in the corrals. Billy gently steered him towards the street and let his voice flow around him, and it felt at once familiar and strange in its familiarity. It was amazing, how quickly a man could get used to things.


End file.
